Friday December 31, 2004
Pre-Intermediate +

THE ARTICLE

The death toll from Asia’s tsunami continues to accelerate at grim and depressing rates, and more death and despair seems to be ahead. By far the hardest country hit is Indonesia, with its Banda Aceh province, which was more or less obliterated from the face of the earth. More than 80,000 are so far dead with thousands missing. New tides wash up thousands of corpses onto the shores every day. Sri Lanka, also severely affected, raised its number of dead to 28,000, which is again set to further rise. The spiraling number of tsunami fatalities may well overtake the Bangladesh cyclone that killed 138,000 people in 1991. Two other natural disasters were on such a scale last century – a 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, China, that killed 242,000; and a 1970 cyclone in Bangladesh that accounted for 500,000 deaths.

Tens of millions of people around the Indian Ocean are now suffering from homelessness, injury, shock, grief, despair, a lack of food and water, and the very real and serious threat from disease, which is certain to add tens of thousands more dead. The amount of aid pledged rises each day, but is still nowhere near enough to deal with the Herculean task of providing help to those in need. Britain increased its aid to $96 million, making it the second most generous contributing nation, at $1.50 for every member of the population. Most generous so far is Denmark, with its per capita contribution of $3.12. The contribution of the United States is just $0.11 per American. Perhaps George Bush needs to look in the dictionary at the word ‘generosity’. It’s quite a few pages earlier than ‘stingy’.

POSSIBLE WARM UPS / COOL DOWNS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about numbers / money / statistics  / facts / luck / the power of nature…
To make things more dynamic, try telling your students they only have one minute (or 2) on each chat topic before changing topics / partners. Change topic / partner frequently to energize the class.

2. HOW TO HELP: Students talk to each other about the best way to raise money quickly for the tsunami victims. What kind of things happen in each of their countries – garage sales, sponsored walks, street collections … Vote on the best idea and then put it into action.

3. NEWS: Students talk about where they get their news of the tsunami disaster. Rate the quality of reporting and what is necessary or unnecessary.

4. FEELINGS BRAINSTORM: Brainstorm the feelings students have towards the disaster. Write them on the board. Pairs put the feelings into their own categories and then talk about how far they share each feeling.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘face’, and ‘earth’.

2. TRUE / FALSE: Students look at the headline and predict whether they believe the following statements are true or false:
(a)  The death toll from Asia’s tsunami continues to accelerate.  T / F
(b)  By far the hardest country hit is Indonesia.  T / F
(c)  Banda Aceh province was more or less obliterated from the face of the earth.  T / F
(d)  Very few people are now thought to be missing.  T / F
(e)  New tides wash up thousands of corpses onto the shores every day.  T / F
(f)  This will be the costliest natural disaster in terms of human life in over one hundred years. T / F
(g)  There is now enough aid money to help everyone.  T / F
(h)  George Bush needs to look in the dictionary at the word ‘generosity’.  T / F

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Students match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	accelerate	misery
(b)	grim	bereavement
(c)	despair	remains
(d)	obliterated	skyrocket
(e)	corpse	promised
(f)	fatality	wiped out
(g)	grief	charitableness
(h)	pledged	gruesome
(i)	per capita	per person
(j)	generosity	death

4. PHRASE MATCH: Students match the following phrases based on the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

(a)	death	less obliterated
(b)	more seems	a few pages earlier than ‘stingy’
(c)	by	of food and water
(d)	more or	far the hardest country hit
(e)	on such	contribution of $3.12
(f)	a lack	toll
(g)	still	nowhere near enough
(h)	to deal with	to be ahead
(i)	per capita	the task of providing help
(j)	quite	a scale

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. GAP-FILL:  Put the missing words under each paragraph into the gaps.

Death Toll spirals past 120,000

The death toll from Asia’s tsunami continues to __________ at grim and depressing rates, and more death and despair seems to be ahead. By far the hardest country __________ is Indonesia, with its Banda Aceh province, which was more or less obliterated from the __________ of the earth. More than 80,000 are so far de ad with thousands missing. New tides wash up thousands of corpses onto the shores every day. Sri Lanka, also severely affected, raised its number of dead to 28,000, which is again set to further rise. The __________ number of tsunami fatalities may well __________ the Bangladesh cyclone that killed 138,000 people in 1991. Two other natural disasters were on such a scale last century – a 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, China, that killed 242,000; and a 1970 cyclone in Bangladesh that __________ for 500,000 deaths.		face overtake hit accounted spiraling accelerate
Tens of millions of people around the Indian Ocean are now __________ from homelessness, injury, shock, grief, despair, a __________ of food and water, and the very real and serious __________ from disease, which is certain to add tens of thousands more dead. The amount of aid pledged rises each day, but is still __________ near enough to deal with the Herculean task of providing help to those in need. Britain increased its aid to $96 million, making it the __________ most generous contributing nation, at $1.50 for every member of the population. Most generous so far is Denmark, with its per capita contribution of $3.12. The contribution of the United States is just $0.11 per American. Perhaps George Bush needs to look in the dictionary at the word ‘generosity’. It’s quite a few pages earlier than ‘__________’.		nowhere suffering threat stingy second lack

 

2. TRUE/FALSE:  Students check their answers to the T/F exercise.

3. SYNONYMS:  Students check their answers to the synonyms exercise.

4. PHRASE MATCH: Students check their answers to the phrase match exercise.

5. QUESTIONS: Students make notes for questions they would like to ask the class about the article.

6. VOCABULARY:  Students circle any words they do not understand. In groups pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS:  Students ask the discussion questions they thought of above to their partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class.

5. ‘FACE’/ ‘EARTH’: Students make questions based on their findings from pre-reading activity #1.

6. DISCUSSION:  Students ask each other the following questions:
(a)  Is George W. Bush stingy or generous?
(b)  What do you think of the large numbers you see on TV or read in the newspaper?
(c)  What do you think of the pictures you see on TV or in newspapers?
(d)  Can / should the media be doing more / something different to help?
(e)  What do you think of the fact that George Bush says America provides most of the world’s aid, but
figures show America’s per capita contributions are just 11 cents?
(f)  What do you think of the world community’s response to help the victims?
(g)  If you were head of relief efforts, what one thing would you do now?
(h)  What should relief agencies / national leaders learn from this disaster to be better positioned to help people next time?
(i)  Will this earthquake and tsunami make you think twice about travelling / going to the ocean in the future?
(j)  Has media coverage desensitized us to disaster?
(k)  Other teacher’s questions???

7. AID NOW:  In pairs / groups, students create plans to help people affected by the tsunamis. The plans must be implementable (and implemented!) in the next 24 hours. Students present their plans (including asking for real help) to the class. A vote is taken on the best plan of action. The plan is homework.

HOMEWORK

1. VOCAB EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or the Google search field to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find more information on tsunamis. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. AID NOW: Implement your plans to collect money for the tsunami victims and send the cash quickly to one of the organizations in the Internet links above.

4. LETTER TO GEORGE: Write a letter to US President George W. Bush explaining your thoughts on the US$0.11 per capita contribution he calls to choose ‘generous’.

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

(a)  The death toll from Asia’s tsunami continues to accelerate.  T
(b)  By far the hardest country hit is Indonesia.  T
(c)  Banda Aceh province was more or less obliterated from the face of the earth.  T
(d)  Very few people are now thought to be missing.  T
(e)  New tides wash up thousands of corpses onto the shores every day.  T
(f)  This will be the costliest natural disaster in terms of human life in over one hundred years. T
(g)  There is now enough aid m oney to help everyone.  F
(h)  George Bush needs to look in the dictionary at the word ‘generosity’.  T

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	accelerate	skyrocket
(b)	grim	gruesome
(c)	despair	misery
(d)	obliterated	wiped out
(e)	corpse	remains
(f)	fatality	death
(g)	grief	bereavement
(h)	pledged	promised
(i)	per capita	per person
(j)	generosity	charitableness

PHRASE MATCH:

(a)	death	toll
(b)	more seems	to be ahead
(c)	by	far the hardest country hit
(d)	more or	less obliterated
(e)	on such	a scale
(f)	a lack	of food and water
(g)	still	nowhere near enough
(h)	to deal with	the task of providing help
(i)	per capita	contribution of $3.12
(j)	quite	a few pages earlier than ‘stingy’